


Changing What I Thought I Knew

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Take Me To The Stars [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multiple Doctors (Doctor Who), Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 08:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16426118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: As fun days out go, Clara would rank 'bumping into your partner's previous incarnation, and your successor' fairly low down on the fun scale. Still, the Doctor takes it all in their stride - or one of them does, at least.





	Changing What I Thought I Knew

**Author's Note:**

> From allnewtpir's prompt:
> 
>  _For your consideration, and apologies if you've done it before: 13/Clara and the new crew run into 12 with Bill. 12 is aghast at the new TARDIS, while the new crew are stunned at 13's previous form._  
> 
> Fun fluffiness ensued.

As mornings went, Clara had had worse. Waking up in a TARDIS that was both hers and not-hers – the Schrödinger’s cat of Gallifreyan time-space travel – was still a novelty that had not quite worn off, and waking up beside the woman who she called her partner was still, despite her immortality, wholly breath-taking. There was something wonderfully comfortable about rolling over in bed and resting against the warm shape of her other half under the duvet, their bodies slotting together and their fingers intertwining as they lay there, still bound in the trappings of sleep. The usual morning routine unfolded as it always did, with Clara stumbling out of bed and in search of tea and biscuits, although there was no longer any disagreement about the suitability of custard creams as a breakfast foodstuff – that argument had long since been forgotten in favour of a quiet life. 

By the time they had both got dressed – equally speedily, although Clara’s tendency towards being so low-maintenance was a recent development borne of an impatient partner – they were, she supposed, technically late, but the advantages of the TARDIS meant that the conventions of linear time no longer applied, although punctuality was contingent on the ship’s desire to go where and when her pilots wished. 

As coordinates were programmed and more biscuits were procured, there were stolen kisses and laughter, and then… there was Sheffield, with the usual slate-grey of the sky overhead, and the neat, uniform rows of terraced houses below, and the gang, perched on Graham’s garden wall with eager faces. 

“Hello,” the Doctor called, and her whole face lit up in a way that Clara knew only happened in response to four people – herself, and the three people who were currently looking at the Time Lady in a way that Clara recognised as a mirror of her own expression. “How’s things, then?” 

“Could be worse,” Yaz said with a little grin of pride, looking from the Doctor to Clara and back again with a shy little toss of her hair. It had taken several weeks, but she’d at last stopped turning maroon when confronted with the two of them, and Clara considered that a small victory. “They’ve finally taken me off parking disputes and got me doing something interesting.”

“Always a bonus. Define interesting, though. Nothing like paperwork, is it? Because paperwork is proper boring, and if I have to have a word with your boss, I will,” the Doctor asked, and Yaz’s enthusiasm visibly lessened a degree or so.

“Dealing with shoplifters,” she looked down at the floor, as though worried that the alien woman in front of her might find that boring or trivial. “You know, it’s…” 

“Great,” the Doctor said warmly, and Yaz’s head snapped up, taking in the sincerity in the Time Lady’s voice and puffing herself up with pride once again. “That’s really great, plus it’ll keep you fit. Sprinting after teenagers. No exercise like it.” 

“Except maybe running down corridors, being chased by aliens,” Clara interjected with a grin. “That’s pretty effective too. Got me into shape.”

“You can’t be out of shape,” Graham noted, with characteristic forthrightness, and Clara was reminded for the hundredth time of her own grandmother. “You’re immortal.”

Clara laughed, knowing the words weren’t meant as a criticism. “I wasn’t always. Chasing this idiot around kept me fit.” 

“Might do me some good then,” Graham chuckled, then held his arms out. Stepping into them, Clara received the usual bone-crushing hug that Graham was famed for. “How are you, sweetheart?” 

“Can’t complain. Things are-” 

“-for god’s _sake,_ ” a woman’s voice all but shouted from somewhere nearby, interrupting Clara’s words. The woman’s accent was jarringly London; a stark contrast to the soft burrs of the three Yorkshirefolk assembled before the TARDIS. “I didn’t ask you to come and get me, did I? You just swept in, TARDIS and all, and decided I needed rescuing _from a house party-_ ” 

“The TARDIS thought you were in danger!” a Scottish voice shot back, and Clara pulled away from Graham at once. Beside her, she sensed the Doctor freeze, knowing that the Time Lady knew what was about to happen and was steeling herself for the uncomfortable discombobulation of meeting her previous self. “She set off before I could do anything!” 

“Oh, right, blame your… hang on, have you redecorated?” 

“No, why?” 

The Doctor – the previous Doctor, all eyebrows and scowls – stepped around the TARDIS and froze as he took in the five people stood on the pavement gaping at him. He was joined a second later by a young woman wearing a faded denim jacket, who stared with open-mouthed amazement at the three women as though she had never seen one before. 

“What?” the Time Lord snapped, apparently entirely unaware to the hostility he was radiating in waves, and it took Clara a moment to realise he couldn’t see her. She was concealed partly by the Doctor – the new Doctor, who was stood stock-still in abject horror – and so she stepped aside, giving him an awkward little wave and watching as the cogs in his brain almost tangibly set into motion. After some considerable seconds, he asked with disbelief: “Clara?” 

“I knew that was a load of crap about you wiping your memories,” she retorted, raising one eyebrow and trying to stop her voice from trembling with emotion. “Hello, daft old man.” 

He took half a step forwards, his arms extended awkwardly in what she recognised as an invitation, and she half-ran, half-tripped into his embrace, standing on tiptoes so that she could fling her arms around his chest and encircle him completely. She wanted to cry, but she squeezed her eyes shut until the sensation passed, instead rubbing her cheek against the velvet of his coat and taking deep, steadying breaths until she felt more in control of herself. 

“Miss me?” he asked, in a breathless voice reminiscent of his younger self. 

“S’pose so,” she mumbled, pulling away and looking him up and down with a grin. “Yeah. Lots.” 

“I…” the young woman beside him finally seemed to regain the ability to speak, and asked with incredulity: “Doctor, is this your missus? Because you never mentioned that she was hot.” 

“Urm…” he began, his cheeks flushing maroon. “I…” 

“She’s my better half,” the Doctor – the new one, now jolting into action – said suddenly, stepping forwards with a warm smile and placing her arm around Clara’s waist. There was a pause as the two incarnations of the Gallifreyan’s eyes met, a spark of understanding passing between them, and then the Scottish Doctor gasped as he deciphered what had come to pass since his regeneration. “Hello, old friend.” 

“Hello,” he managed, his voice oddly strangled. “Clara’s your…”

“Don’t get all weird with each other over me,” Clara warned them both, caught between wanting to lean into her partner’s embrace and wanting to cling onto the stick-insect like frame of the previous Doctor. Instead, she moved away from both of them, beaming at the Doctor’s new companion – her successor, she supposed. “Hi, I’m Clara. He probably hasn’t mentioned me being hot because he’s been pretending he can’t remember who I am for a good few… what is it, decades or centuries?” 

“Don’t start,” he muttered under his breath. “Please.”

“Bill,” the other woman said, ignoring the dig Clara had made at the Time Lord’s expense. “You’re urm. You’re very pretty.” 

“Bill,” the older Doctor said with a groan, and Clara bit back a laugh. “Not now, please. I’m having a crisis.”

“About?” 

“Becoming a woman. Finding myself… with-partner. That sort of thing.” 

“What do you mean, becoming a woman?” 

He nodded towards his future self, and Bill’s expression became one of amazement. “That’s you in the future?!” 

“Yeah.” 

“That is… really unfair,” Bill looked at Clara with seriousness. “How come you get the fit lady and I get the angry eyebrows? Is there a cheat code? Or a hack? I’ll swap you.” 

“It’s complicated.” 

The Scottish Doctor looked Clara in the eyes, and she could see the sadness laid bare there. There was a question in his expression, and it was one that she dreaded having to answer – the question of why not _him_ , and she loathed the thought of having to answer it when they managed to find some time alone. 

“What on earth is going on?” Ryan complained, and Clara remembered abruptly where they were and who they were with. “Who are these people, and why is everyone getting so aggy at each other?” 

“This _is_ the Doctor,” Clara said, gesturing to the familiar blonde woman, and then to the Scottish man stood across from her. “And this _was_ the Doctor.” 

“You…” Graham looked baffled. “You were a bloke? Is that why you know so much about engines and such?” 

“Don’t be sexist,” Yaz complained at once. “Girls can know about engines too.” 

“Thank you, Yaz; yes they can. But you’re right, Graham, I was a bloke for a long time, yeah,” the Time Lady shrugged. “Surprise, I suppose?” 

“As surprises go,” the Scottish Doctor muttered. “I think I’d rather have discovered Missy had escaped…”

 

* * *

 

“Does it bother you?” the Doctor asked that evening, curled up in bed already and clutching a book that she hadn’t yet opened. The question was blurted and abrupt, and Clara could tell that it was something the Time Lady had been working up to asking for some time.

“Does what bother me?” Clara asked, running a brush through her hair and then climbing in beside her partner, wrapping the duvet around herself and getting comfortable. 

“That I’m not… you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” she felt a small stab of frustration that it was assumed that they were on the same page. So frequently they were, and yet just as frequently she was left several steps behind, unable to keep up with the relentless pace of the Doctor’s brain. 

“That I’m not him. Previous-me. With the eyebrows and the Scottish accent and the sonic sunglasses and the-” 

“Doctor, why would that bother me?” 

“Because you loved him before you loved me, but you never had the chance to be _in_ love with him. Because I saw the sadness in your eyes when he saw what we were. Because I know what it’s like to love someone and not feel like they’re yours to love… and I know what it’s like to then lose them.” 

“Doctor…” 

“I loved you for so long,” the Doctor whispered, her voice cracking with emotion. “I burned for you for so long and so quietly that you must have wondered if I cared. I did. I do. I just never felt that you were mine to want, or mine to have, or mine to love. And because of that stupidity and that wilful ignorance… we lost so much time.”

“Time that we have now,” Clara reassured her, taking her hand and squeezing gently. The Time Lady’s fingers laced through her own, and Clara could feel the other woman trembling. “I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you, in all honesty, and I regret not acting on that sooner, but it doesn’t bother me – who you are doesn’t bother me. I will miss the times I didn’t get to call you mine, yes, but it isn’t something I dwell on. I never thought you could be mine, and then I lost you in the worst way possible. But you changed, and you found me again, and that is what matters to me most.” 

“But-” 

“You are not the only one of us to have lost the other,” Clara reminded the Doctor, remembering how it felt to see the Time Lord crumple to the floor of a stolen TARDIS, the light leaving his eyes. “We have both felt that pain, and we have both experienced loss, but what matters isn’t that – what matters is being reunited and being together now. That’s _all_ that matters. Not what could have been, not what would have been – what is. I need you to remember that.” 

“I love you.” 

“I love you. All of you. I always have, and that will never change.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to submit a request for a drabble, you can do so [here.](http://universe-on-her-shoulders.tumblr.com/ask)


End file.
